Hayley Williams on Monumentour

It is no surprise that friends Fall Out Boy and Paramore decided to join forces for the ongoing Monumentour. Fall Out Boy is supporting their newest record, Save Rock and Roll, and the trio that is Paramore are hitting the stage in full force with their newest single, “Ain’t It Fun.” Both mega bands are co-headlining the tour with New Politics as the opening act.

Paramore front woman Hayley Williams isn’t worried about any competition though! “Any competition is friendly competition!” she jokes. “We just want to put on the best Paramore show ever, whether we co-headline or are the headliners… I know that they are going to put on an amazing show, and that to me is important. If both bands aren’t bringing their A game, then we are doing our fans an injustice!”

Williams won’t have to fret about letting their fans down, not with their recent hit, “Ain’t It Fun.” This track strongly symbolizes that the rock trio are past their angst stage, and ready to take on the music industry with their diverse and energetic new single. Vocally, Williams is confident and mature, while able to still hold onto her colorful personality. “This one by far has shocked all of us,” she says. “I hope that people can connect to that sort of energy, and I feel that the message hopefully is sarcastic and inspiring to young people getting into the world for the first time on their own.”

Williams opened up on how writing the self-titled album was an emotional process since the departure of former members Josh and Zac Farro in 2010. After an angry note written by Josh on his Blogger, Williams felt that it was time to not be a new band, but rather to touch back as to who they were as musicians. “Once we were down two band members, not only did we have to go through the emotional processing, grief, some anger and bewilderment, all those crazy emotions that we had to ride up and down for a while. We were at the same time realizing that we did still want to make music, and I didn’t change the way I still felt about Paramore, that alone before we got to actually writing music, that took time. And it took us making a really valiant effort to get to know one another again as people.”

Since the creative control was handed to Williams, along with Jeremy Davis and Tayler York, the band sounds as though it has come full circle with the addition of gospel choirs and their venture into an uncharted territory. “Before this album we always put ourselves in a box,” she says. “We always had to live up to whatever expectations we felt mattered. Again, this has all been really liberating, I can never make an album under the same restraints that we might have put on ourselves before we made Paramore.”

So, does this mean that Paramore plans on only performing new stuff? “For us,” Williams answers, “the fact that we are doing a co-headline means that we are doing the same set time as Fall Out Boy every night and I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be to fit all our singles… I think we did a good job of meshing those two sets together for Monumentour. I hope people will be happy, I mean I know how it feels to be a fan at my favorite bands show… it is a lot of pressure to put a set list together, but I think we did a really good job!”

Music to me is the inspiration to life. I've always had to listen to a song no matter what emotions were charging through me at the moment. I love shooting shows because there is nothing like capturing the indescribable moment where a musician reaches the high point of his/her performance. There is a sudden second in this moment where there is constant battle of beauty and vibrancy in light and the despair in darkness.

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